let it roll off

we've all experienced pain and heartbreak. emotions can cause us to feel extremes, whether they be positive or negative. we tend to relish in the negative emotions though, instead of fully feeling the good. i am not immune to being consumed by negative emotions. it can be all that you think about. it can attack you mentally and physically so that the only thing you can do is shut down or spew out something equally as vile. but how is this anyway to live? what if there was a way to acknowledge these emotions, feel them, process them and then let them go? it's not an easy task, but it is something i am actively working towards in my life to create more peace and tranquility. everything can be stressful if we let it, so why not try and just recognize it and deal with it in the moment? this quote from the book i am currently reading, "the buddah walks into a bar..." explains exactly this. it is so, so, so true. 

instead of getting angry at the pain or turning our back to it, all we have to do is be present with what we are feeing. our pain may deliver several jabs to our gut. we may feel like throwing up. however, if we can be present with our pain, it exhausts itself. it sags and alters and ultimately collapses. if we do not indulge our pain but instead just allow ourselves to feel it, we go through an intimate healing process. the pain washes over us like a wave, and we come out the other end unscathed and feeling better for it. 

we must live until we die.

I read this poem today and it struck a cord. I believe that it is talking about how you must live for today because you could die at any moment. Marvell is saying how much he loves this girl, and would love her for thousands of years if he could, but the end will come and we have no idea when that will be. If you love someone let them know. Express what you feel or else you may not have another chance to say it.

To his Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.